Sportsmen and engineers have designed different types of snowboards to travel over the surface of the snow. Snowboards travel differently than skis and sleds. In particular, snowboards allow users to lift up on or tilt onto an edge of the board and use the force of the board's edge against the snow surface to turn direction. This type of turning is called carving and it essentially allows the skilled snowboarder to make tight radius turns. Unlike with skis, the snowboarder positions his or her feet transverse to the longitudinal axis of the board. This means that the snowboarder must lean forward or backwards to tilt the board on to one of its edges. This takes quite a bit of skill to achieve, but the benefit is that the snowboard turns using a process that keeps the velocity of the board, both speed and direction, aligned with the turned patch of the snowboard. In contrast, turning without rising on to an edge, maintains the full wide bottom surface of the snowboard against the snow road forces the rider to essentially drag the bottom surface of the board until the snowboard points in the proper direction. This manner of turning is called skidding. Skidding the board slows the rider because the frictional force of the board against the snow is not aligned with the direction of travel and therefore results in a strong frictional stopping force. Frictional forces between the board and snow surface can make riding more difficult and less fun.
Engineers and sportsmen have endeavored to reduce the frictional forces that slow and make less stable the movement of a snowboard across the snow.
The interaction between the board and the snow impacts the performance of the board and rider. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,356,822 describes engagement devices that can attach to the bottom of a snowboard to change how it engages with the snow and performs. U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,244 discusses a snowboard having two edges on the bottom surface for contacting the snow to reduce skidding.
Still there remains a need for improved systems and devices for improving and altering the performance of snowboards.